Why Culture Matters for Counseling

Christian counseling is up close and personal. It engages not only with the person’s problems but with the depths of their souls. It is “heart-work” that requires precision, attentiveness, and care.

So why should a counselor care about something as big and abstract as culture?

Paul Hiebert defined “culture” as “the more or less integrated systems of ideas, feelings, and values and their associated patterns of behavior and products shared by a group of people who organize and regulate what they think, feel, and do.” In other words, it’s all the stuff we share that we rarely think about because it comes naturally to us and the others who make up our particular cultural group.

Now, let’s think about sin on a cultural level. Sin bends and breaks every human heart. But the way that brokenness unfolds–and therefore the terrain of the path of renewal–is very much shaped by the cultural milieu around us. A teenage girl on the cheer team may not feel tempted to offer sacrifices to fertility gods; however, a tribal chief in Africa probably doesn’t obsess over his weight so he can fit in the perfect homecoming gown. Yet both struggle with heart issues, and both are approaching their trials with various assumptions and skewed categories that God’s word addresses.

Why does this matter to the Christian counselor? Because a large part of our task in counseling is helping others live out Romans 12:1-2:

• “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Helping individuals notice where they are making assumptions enables them to change their patterns of thought. Realizing that we don’t have perfectly objective views of the world, God, ourselves, and others frees us to be more humble in our self-examination and incisive in our perception of our problems.

In this sense, every Christian counselor is a missionary. Our task is to help the counselee question his or her assumptions about what is normal and logical–the futile ways inherited from our forefathers (1 Peter 1:18-19)–in order to arrive at a more precise grasp of the truth.

How do we do this? Basically, just notice what’s there already.

What They Consume

Everyone drips culture. We have to be aware of it. Look what people are wearing when they meet with you. Try to see what kind of car they drive. Note where in town they live if you have their address. Ask simple questions: Did you watch anything interesting last week? Are you a sports fan? What kind of music do you like? Did you see that billboard on the way in? Where do you like to shop?

You can start with basic bits. Let’s say a counselee is a huge Swiftie. How might Taylor’s lyrics about love, longing, and self-acceptance help or hinder the counselee’s expectations for their own relationships? For the way they view their bodies?

Or maybe they listen to Christian radio every day. What message about the faith are they picking up from these songs? Are they genuine, rich expressions of the faith, or are they full of platitudes and sentimentality? Is this shaping how they expect the process of dealing with their problems to go?

Are they on social media? What do they mainly pay attention to and follow: their friends? Mommy blogs? Redpill manosphere guys? Christian Twitter? Why do they engage in those things, and how do they do so? Do they go there for entertainment, information, consolation, wisdom, or some combination of the above?

All of this gives you an idea not only for their professed beliefs but also their actual cognitive/social/emotional operating system. Notice the people in front of you with all of their quirks and oddities. What are they telling you?

What They Assume

What are the things the person in front of you sees as obviously true? Pay attention to their throwaway comments. Maybe it’s the obsession to keep a detailed calorie log on their phone. Perhaps it’s that “true love” solves all pain and marriage shouldn’t be so hard. Maybe it’s that they’re entitled to a particular lifestyle. Maybe it’s that men naturally detach and unplug when they get home, so their wives shouldn’t be so upset.

What do they assume to be true about human relationships, the possibility of change, and the nature of human bodies? About medication, right and wrong, boundaries, obligations, and autonomy? How do they feel about hierarchy and order in the home, nation, and public square? How much of what they take as patently obvious comes from careful reflection or just unnoticed cultural habituation?

As you notice these things, begin to poke lightly, acting like a new speed bump on the same mental road they’ve driven a hundred times. You’re helping them slow down and ask: “I assume that something must be–does the Bible? I expect this of myself and others–does God?”

That question opens the door to meeting the person’s struggles with actual hope. The counselor’s job is not to be hip to the latest trends and fads. Rather, it’s our job to see the people in front of us as whole people, and that includes seeing them as people who swim in a sea of ideological claims–claims that promise much but offer very little in return. The counselor instead gets to step in with the beauty of the gospel and carefully apply it to sinful and wounded hearts. But to do so, we must clearly perceive what the heart is sick for in the first place. Culture is one tool for doing so. Take it, and use it well.